Liquid crystal panels are used in display devices for televisions, mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, and the like. A liquid crystal panel needs to use external light to display an image. Thus, as shown in Patent Document 1, this type of display device is provided with an illumination device (a so-called backlight device) to supply light to the liquid crystal panel. This illumination device is disposed on the rear surface side of the liquid crystal panel and illuminates the rear surface of the liquid crystal panel with planar light.
As the illumination device, a so-called edge lit type (or side lit type) that has a light guide plate made of a transparent plate-shaped member and a light source unit facing an edge face of this light guide plate is known as shown in Patent Document 1. Among illumination devices of this type, in recent years, a type of light source unit with a plurality of LEDs mounted on an LED substrate (hereinafter, LED unit) has been in general use.
Furthermore, as shown in Patent Document 1, the LED unit is provided within the illumination device so as to face the edge face of the light guide plate while being supported by a light source support member made of a heat dissipating member that has an L-shape in a cross-sectional view. The light source support member (heat dissipating member) has an upright portion (first heat dissipating section) that is attached to the LED unit (light-emitting module), and has a portion (second heat dissipating section) that extends from the upright portion towards the light guide plate and makes contact with the rear surface of the light guide plate. Also, this light source support member is in contact with the case portion of the illumination device. When such a light source support member is attached to the LED unit, the heat generated from the LED unit can be effectively dissipated outside using the light source support member.
However, in recent years, due to the demand for a reduction in thickness and the like, display devices without a frame-shaped member to support the periphery of the liquid crystal panel from the rear surface side have been proposed. With this type of display device, the liquid crystal panel is provided so as to be mounted on the surface in the front side of the light guide plate. Furthermore, a frame-shaped bezel covers the periphery of the liquid crystal panel from the front side of the liquid crystal panel. A display device with this kind of configuration is assembled by stacking a liquid crystal panel, a light guide plate, and the like in that order on the bezel that is upside down. The LED unit is disposed on the prescribed location on the bezel in advance before the liquid crystal panel and the like are stacked on the bezel.
However, if an LED unit is attached to a light source support member provided with a portion in contact with the rear surface of the light guide plate, the liquid crystal panel, the light guide plate, and the like cannot be stacked on the bezel after the LED unit is disposed on the prescribed location of the upside down bezel. This is because, if the light source support member is disposed on the prescribed location of the bezel in advance, a portion of the light source support member (the portion in contact with the rear surface of the light guide plate) would be protruding towards the inner side of the bezel, and the protruding portion would be caught on the liquid crystal panel, the light guide plate, and the like. In this case, the LED unit would be provided together with the light source support member on the bezel after the liquid crystal panel, the light guide plate, and the like are disposed on the bezel. The LED unit will be disposed in a gap between an edge face of the light guide plate and a wall-shaped portion of the bezel and the like facing the edge face by inserting the LED unit from the rear side of the light guide plate.